1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a connector mechanism and a docking station, and especially relates to a docking station for electronic apparatus and a connector mechanism used in the docking station.
2. Description of the Prior Art
For requirements for light and thin electronic apparatus, common electronic apparatuses are designed to be without bulky devices or infrequently-used connection ports, such as optical disk drive, keyboard and conventional serial and parallel ports which are externally used. These devices are usually integrated into a docking station. For improving functionality of the docking station, the docking station usually also provides powering. When a user needs to use the above external devices, the user can engage the electronic apparatus with the docking station. At the moment, the electronic apparatus can use the function or device provided by the docking station. In general, the docking station only provides expansion connection, so the electronic apparatus only provides simple support for the electronic apparatus to be firmly electrically connected to the docking station. As for convenient operation on the electronic apparatus engaged with the docking station for users, it is not under the consideration yet.
As tablet PCs are increasingly popular, some docking stations have keyboard function and are capable of providing supporting the tablet PC in a proper angle for convenience of use for users. However, most of these docking stations only provide single supporting angle, which still cannot satisfy various demands by users and is still a little inconvenient. For example, the connector for these docking stations for electrically connecting with the tablet PC is usually disposed in a fixed angle, so the operation angle for the tablet PC engaged with the connector is limited. For another example, the connector for some docking stations is rotatable, so a rotatable support pivotally connected to the docking station is required for the connector installed thereon. However, because of the capability of free rotating of such connector, the engagement of the tablet PC with the docking station is relatively unstable if the tablet PC is not support properly. Especially when the angle for rotating the tablet PC backward is excessively large, the tablet PC may be disengaged from the connector of the docking station. Certainly, some docking stations are designed to be wireless linked with the tablet PC, so the docking station can support the tablet PC just by simple supporting structure. However, wireless transmission such as Bluetooth is limited to bandwidth or other transmission factors so that velocity, quality and quantity of the transmission is limited so as to be not so good as transmission over connectors physically contacted with each other. Therefore, improvement is necessary for conventional docking stations so as to really meet requirements for use by users.